Beware the Fallen: Young Adult Mythology (Banished Divinity Book 1)

by Logan Delayne

  Hermes was afraid of whatever he saw, and then, just like that, it was gone.

  I was too stunned by my own power that I did not see the blade. And Alec must not have either because I stayed where I was, and he was firm against my back, pulling me toward him, but that did nothing to stop Hermes.

  In his hand was a weapon of immortal power. I knew it by the strange aura it held, much like the dagger I’d tried to use on Alec in the forest the first time that we met.

  I opened my mouth to shout, but nothing would come out. It felt as if time stood still and the blade descended and in a split second—I had already accepted my fate.

  But then Alec and I had switched places, and his hand gripped the offending arm. The blade was close enough that it kissed my chin, cutting deeply with barely a brush, and I gasped and fell away from the poison.

  Alec held fast, keeping it from my throat. Together they struggled until it was clear that Hermes would lose. He shoved away from Alec who turned to make sure I was all right.

  “No!” I bellowed.

  In a flash Hermes flew as if his life depended on it, his face twisted with rage. He would have slammed into Alec’s back, and I would have seen the blade sink into the king and helplessly watched him fall…but before he could reach Alec, Aphrodite had tried to step in the way.

  “No!” I called again, and this time, it was pleading.

  The blade struck down, sinking deep into flesh, and I grunted as a cloud of hair surrounded me, before the room erupted into chaos.

  Aphrodite was before me, her eyes still swimming with golden tears, and her face now open on a scream. I was cradling her body, stiff in pain.

  Hermes gasped and stumbled backwards, realizing what he’d done.

  “By the gods!” Milos thundered, leaning over Aphrodite to protect her as her gold blood leaked onto me from where Hermes’ blade still remained in her back. Together we held her as she slumped.

  Her mouth, too, leaked golden blood as Alec approached and took her from mine and Milos’ arms.

  Eros raced into the room, feathers drifting in his wake. “My queen!” he cried; his voice filled with fear. “No no no. What have they done to you? My sweet lady, what have they done?”

  Alec held her in his arms, lifting her from her feet, but she couldn’t even get a word past the ichor draining from her.

  “Do something, please,” Eros said, his face twisted in agony. “I cannot go on without her.”

  Alec kept watching her face, whispering things, speaking so low that none could hear and then she was still.

  Eros began to keen, and the room was silent otherwise.

  Hermes broke the silence. “You know I never meant to hurt her. I would never.”

  Alec set her body down, and I, smeared in gold that smelled like roses, pillowed her head on my lap.

  The king then turned on Hermes with a thunderous expression that rattled me to look at it too carefully. The black snake of smoke rose around us in an instant and several gods fled.

  Hermes spun on his heels to leave, but plants rose around him.

  “Alec!” I shouted, not sure if I meant to stop him, only fearing there would be retribution, but the vines latched onto the messenger. At first, Hermes fought, and then he screamed an unmanly holler for help.

  “Unhand me! You wouldn’t dare defy Zeus! I am here under his protection!”

  The plants kept going, weaving their weave, snaking through and around Hermes. “I don’t see him here to defend you,” Alec said darkly, stepping across where I’d stood only moments before in my power, his bootheels crunching on ice I’d left on his floor. “Tell me the truth, Hermes. Why do you want to hurt Freya so badly?”

  Hermes struggled with the plants. “Because she’s not one of us!”

  Lies.

  Blood spurted from his nose and eyes.

  “Because she’s a titan! Our enemy!”

  Lies.

  Blood poured from his mouth.

  The plants began to swallow him up, and I gave Aphrodite to Eros and stepped forward. “Gods, no. Alec, please.”

  He’d risk punishment. I couldn’t bear to see that happen.

  “Because…because,” Hermes groaned. Even as he thought of lies the pain increased until he spilled the truth. “Zeus told me that no matter what, no matter how, I had to make sure she’d get sent to Tartarus.”

  I froze.

  “What…what does he mean?” I said, my voice shaking. I stepped up to Hermes unafraid of Alec’s plants as I knew they would leave me be. “What are you talking about?”

  They had nearly swallowed him up. His face was already being covered on one side. Blood and vines, that’s all I could see except for one eye now. “Tell me!” I demanded, my hands longing to rip out his throat.

  “He has nightmares. And when he does, Zeus cries out one thing.” His voice was deep with anguish, his breath coming in fast gasps. “Kill the Titans. Destroy the Titans! Every. Last. One.”

  And then he was gone into his plant prison. He was covered and quiet. Smothered and dying. “Alec,” I said softly. “You have to let him go. I know he’s done something that deserves death, but you can’t be the one with blood on your hands. Let Hades judge him…”

  Warm hands turned me. I glanced up into green, concerned, but fierce eyes. “I will not let him hurt anyone else.” But I could see who he meant. “Not for anything in all of the world or under it.”

  Charon allowed for more time since Aphrodite’s arrangements had to be made, and he saw that I was truly grieving. He said even the Fates would understand my delay now.

  Alec kept trying to come up with ways around it but there were none.

  They had argued into the night. Grief for Aphrodite was a dark cloud that hung over the room. The vines that had crushed the life out of Hermes went from green to wood, to petrified, and his face slowly shown through. Would Alec leave the tree right there in the throne room? I thought he might.

  “Please,” I said and then louder, “Please.” All eyes turned onto me. “I will go to the cliffs and I will accept my punishment. I will have your word, all of you…” My eyes hit and held Alec’s drawn features. He had been deadly silent since his friend passed. And I wondered if he blamed me. “…your word that you will not try to interfere.”

  “Leave us,” Alec said, his voice desperate and rough.

  This was going to be a fight, but I was confused how to battle with him when he was on my side.

  Perhaps now he would tell me that he was glad to see me go. That I had cost him too greatly.

  When we were alone, he paced and paced. I wanted to beg him to speak, but the words were gone. My apology would mean nothing.

  He stood next to me and finally went still. His shoulder brushed mine, and the heat there was almost too much to bear. Alec faced opposite and neither of us did anything but felt one another for a moment.

  I dared to look and wished I had not. When he gazed at me it was with far too much truth and I stared at my sandaled feet instead. I knew what I saw there now. Longing. Because it was a mirror.

  “Freya, look at me,” he said gently, and I wondered who this was.

  When had Alec been replaced by the one before me? I did look but my lips pressed between my teeth out of fear. Why now? I wanted to demand. Why now when I had to leave?

  He moved in front of me and lifted my chin to gaze further into his green depths, and I breathed out a sigh. Alec’s thoughts opened to me like his wicked flowers. I saw it all, the raw and unfiltered version of his feelings, and my eyes burned at what they were. The anguish and sorrow. The frustration and pain. The madness was there too, but I saw beyond that into his soul. And it was like seeing the many moons I had visited. Cold. Alone. Exquisite.

  I straightened my shoulders as he touched them, his hands rubbing the sensitive skin. I tried to show him my insides too. The barren wasteland that was so like his own.

  Whatever we may be, our souls had been landscaped by the same sharp scythes of lif
e.

  What he saw there made him close his eyes, before he gazed at the ceiling as if he would ask for help. “Would that I could take this judgement from you, Freya. If you only ask me, I would launch my army into battle with Zeus himself. But I know that you would never ask. It’s the portion of you that is quite endearing.”

  I laughed dryly and my voice was so throaty I didn’t recognize the depth. “Just a portion…”

  His gaze snapped to mine and his fingers lingered at my throat moving back and forth. I swayed.

  “And, why? Why would you?” I asked breathless. “Wage war, I mean.”

  His mouth curved. “This is your home now, titan-blood. Don’t you see?”

  I shook my head. “What are you saying?” Hope lanced through me again and in that moment, I could hate him for making me want something so badly that it nearly changed the shape of me.

  Alec was the stone and I, the water running around it.

  Wariness crept into his gaze. “That the Seven Islands will always be waiting for the moon goddess to hunt for shells on her shore. That the islands will forever wish her to stay in her rooms.”

  I covered my mouth with a shaky hand. I was weary of crying. Though I was weary of not feeling the sweet relief of pressure released as well.

  The islands he’d said, but Alec, did he…could he….

  I swallowed. “What about its king?” My voice was much steadier than I felt.

  His eyes grew sly and his feet shifted to plant firmly. “Yes. The king has a much harder time making his thoughts known as I’m sure you’ve now realized. But everything the island wishes,” he said, those wicked hands straying to my shoulders and back again to cup my chin. “Her king wishes it infinitely more.”

  How I reveled in the feel of him being pulled closer. How I even branded his smell of fertile soil and sharp metallic iron and blood on me. The smell of life and pain, and yet he caused no pain in me. I lifted my arms to twin around his neck and it was as if we danced while perfectly still.

  This was forever and goodbye at the same time because it was.

  We finally found a moment to recall who we were, and we set each other apart reluctantly. I wanted to kiss him, but I could tell that Alec was made of far more disciplined things. Were we to cave, were we to bend, it would take far longer to satisfy what it was we needed than all that we had left. “Once you have safely returned from the cliffs…” he said, cutting off any retort. “…and you will, know that you are no longer my prisoner.” I had no reply, but I felt as if I was floating. “If you left. If you hated me forever, Freya, I would deserve it.”

  His eyes were glossy, and I could see my reflection there. In his, I found regret. Self-hatred. A lifetime of knowing that he could only bring pain to a world that had plenty of it.

  In mine, I knew he saw forgiveness and an ignorant hope. A lifetime ending too short perhaps, and otherwise too long without him if we could not be together.

  “I don’t. I don’t, Alec.” I grabbed his hands. And then it occurred to me like ice across my heated skin. “Promise me if I don’t return that you won’t keep living such a lonely life. If I do not return, I can’t help but worry that you’ll close into yourself like before, into the river of pain. Blame yourself if I should fall. Spend forever like…this.”

  His mouth ticked on one side into nearly a smile. “I stole you from your home. I kept you merely over a shell and yet here you are, on your moments before judgement, offering what worry and care you have for me.” Alec said it like a wonder. “I do not deserve you. None of the gods do.”

  “Damn,” he said like thunder cracking, and we moved at the same time, lunging for one another. “Damn it all to Tartarus,” he growled, and I felt his breath on my lips.

  We were both breathing hard, our mouths closer and closer. “You cannot go with me. I know your mind,” I murmured.

  “Oh, do you?” his mouth curved but his eyes were sad, but his lips were…

  I was tired of waiting and I kissed him like my life depended on it, and Alec gasped and let me push through into him, feeling him, touching his painful power. I explored him as quickly as I dared, like a child rummaging through gifts.

  I pushed up on my toes, my tongue teasing his hot mouth eagerly, and he toyed with me but let me lead for a moment before his rigid control snapped, and though he did not brandish his snake, the darkness pulled me under.

  I tumbled end over end in my mind through a terrifying fall that was Alec’s loss of control.

  At first, I almost cried out, but it occurred to me if I let him hurt me like he’d done before to Aphrodite, he would never let me in again.

  Instead of wishing that he’d find control, I lashed out with my own power. It only answered while in duress, and so I was thankful as it immediately flowed into me, shielding me from the darkness long enough to swim back to the surface of my mind. What I found there was white hot madness.

  But the good kind.

  Alec and I entwined and free.

  His big hands in my hair, cupping my skull so he could lead me on a sparkling journey of ecstasy. This wasn’t just a kiss it was our power dancing and sparring and taking chunks out of the other until finally it collided in a mixture of cold and hot and pain and then frosty chill upon the ache.

  Ache.

  I felt heavy with it.

  Blind to everything but the idea that I needed more.

  I thought it would spiral into everything…everything…

  But it unwound quickly with our joints stiffening and our necks straightening. Our shock, tangible.

  I knew this was a selfish task for selfish immortals. I withdrew.

  For long moments we frowned at empty spaces. If we’d had the time, neither of us would have let our thoughts clear. No doubt, we would have clung to the hazy pleasure coursing through us.

  Lifting my chin, I acted as though our lives were not forever marred by one undoing, though he watched me with the most tormented expression I’d ever seen on an immortal’s face. “Swear you will not further risk yourself and your people for me. It is only fair.” I searched his gaze. “My friend.”

  This was best, I thought. This was right.

  “Friend…” he said and touched his mouth where a red mark appeared. I blushed but he only tasted his lips thoroughly before saying, “I will swear it. But I want to give you a gift.”

  I raised my brows and he smiled. “Oh, don’t look so pleased with yourself, it’s not that kind of gift.”

  My brows couldn’t go any higher.

  “Though,” Alec said thoughtfully, his heavy-lidded gaze running across every part of me until my mouth dropped open.

  I also couldn’t be any redder. I was nearly human with it.

  “I’ve spoken with Persephone,” Alec murmured, his voice a deeper and satisfied tone I’d not heard before. It brought to mind things that heated my blood. “She told me that you would do this. That you would make me give my word.”

  “Your sister,” I said because Alec was such a riddle to me. He flinched slightly at my expression. “So many secrets, Ascalephus.” I sighed. “I do not blame you,” I rushed on, because being related to Persephone was something that perhaps they did not share with many. “I feel…”

  I almost admitted the truth. That my caring had turned to something deeper. Should I not wait for you to love me first? I thought and then said nothing instead.

  But Alec did not fold into the moment any more than I did.

  Cowards. What cowards we were. We could give our bodies but not our words.

  Instead, he unbuckled his belt and put down his sword and next his shirt was off, and the scars were glittering silver hints of a life in battle. I thought about him in his cloak that covered his face when we met and how terrified I was of the king who held pain in the palm of his hand, who’d made me prove myself a liar and look at me now?

  I was full of truth and no more lies.

  Or was I?

  If he were to test my blood again by asking
me if I loved him, would I fail?

  Inside of me something sure and certain as the dawning of time said that I would bleed every drop onto this palace floor if I said that I did not love the king standing across from me.

  Alec was too busy to try, however. His eyes lit from within, casting green glow across the space and shapes appeared on his chest, back, and neck.

  I gasped in delight. They were animals and various other creatures. “Your beasts,” I said softly while tracing the fox first and next the wolf without thinking.

  His shiver during my inspection, his restrained tension, gave me such a sense of power over him that I kept going from one to another until he closed his eyes and turned to stone beneath my hand.

  It was a small preview to what could be between us. Alec would let me explore. He would not only guide me but allow me my free reign of feminine power. An exhilarating prospect.

  Within reason…. His fingers trapped my wrist and his strange glowing eyes caught mine. They narrowed in warning and I smiled until he said, “Choose one.”

  I gaped in confusion.

  “Persephone has helped me with the powers to gift you a guardian for yourself. I would give them all if I could, but it might be more of a burden than just one. So, Freya,” he said quietly, pulling me closer too quickly so that my chin bumped his chest. “Choose one and it is yours forever.”

  Was there something more in his promise? I felt that it meant something important, but I was dizzy this close to the King of the Seven Islands and the words like forever, and yours---high on my control over his responses---they tumbled around me like sparks from the flame.

  We both burned.

  “Or rather, it will choose you I should think,” he said, and it was true.

  The animals began to move, each staring at me from their place.

  I walked away to circle him.

  “Make certain it’s the one you think will answer you and only you. It will be your eyes and ears when you need. You can join with it perhaps as I do some day when you are full of your power. For now, think only of this as a spy. A messenger. For if it should return without you…” Was that sorrow in his eyes? “Then I should follow it to wherever you are on earth or under it.”